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Adjusting to a New Reality
One thing that the huge amount of correspondence that I've received regarding myD30review (Nov. 2000) has made clear to me is that many folks unfamiliar with digital image processing seem to regard output from digital camera as somehow equivalent to aPolaroid;i.e. an end unto itself.
By this, I mean that they expect that what comes out of the camerawillbe (or at leastshouldbe) the final image. This is definitely not the case, and let's see why. 
A digital file is as much a negative (in the image source sense) as is a piece of film. No one expects a negative to be the final image and so neither should digital camera owners. The file produced by the camera is like a music score that needs to be "played" for it have have any substance or interpretation.

Muskoka Lilies, October 2000, Muskoka, Ontario
Photographed with Canon D30 at ISO 100. 1/125th sec @ f/3.5 with a Canon 70~200mm f/2.8L lens. RAW Mode.
Playing the Score
I prefer to work with RAW...

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Michael Reichmann
Michael Reichmann
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Michael Reichmann is the founder of the Luminous Landscape. Michael passed away in May 2016. Since its inception in 1999 LuLa has become the world's largest site devoted to the art, craft, and technology of photography. Each month more than one million people from every country on the globe visit LuLa.
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